Brent vs.West Texas Intermediate in the US petro derivatives price formation

In this paper,we apply the spatial panel model to explore the relationship between the dynamic of two types of crude oil prices(WTI and Brent crude oil)and their refined products over time.Considering the turbulent months of 2011,when Cushing Oklahoma had reached capacity and the crude oil export ban removal in 2015 as breakpoints,we apply this method both in the full sample and the three resultant regimes.First,results suggest our results show that both WTI and Brent display very similar behaviour with the refined products.Second,when attending to each regime,results derived from the first and third regimes are quite similar to the full sample results.Therefore,during the second regime,Brent crude oil became the benchmark in the petrol market,and it influenced the distillate products.Furthermore,our model can let us determine the price-setters and price-followers in the price formation mechanism through refined products.These results possess important considerations to policymakers and the market participants and the price formation.

Flexible Load Participation in Peaking Shaving and Valley Filling Based on Dynamic Price Incentives

Considering the widening of the peak-valley difference in the power grid and the difficulty of the existing fixed time-of-use electricity price mechanism in meeting the energy demand of heterogeneous users at various moments or motivating users,the design of a reasonable dynamic pricing mechanism to actively engage users in demand response becomes imperative for power grid companies.For this purpose,a power grid-flexible load bilevel model is constructed based on dynamic pricing,where the leader is the dispatching center and the lower-level flexible load acts as the follower.Initially,an upper-level day-ahead dispatching model for the power grid is established,considering the lowest power grid dispatching cost as the objective function and incorporating the power grid-side constraints.Then,the lower level comprehensively considers the load characteristics of industrial load,energy storage,and data centers,and then establishes a lower-level flexible load operation model with the lowest user power-consuming cost as the objective function.Finally,the proposed method is validated using the IEEE-118 system,and the findings indicate that the dynamic pricing mechanism for peaking shaving and valley filling can effectively guide users to respond actively,thereby reducing the peak-valley difference and decreasing users’purchasing costs.

Production Chain Length and PPI-CPI Divergence:Analysis Based on the Global Input-output Price Model

Productivity and international energy price shocks are reflected in PPI and CPI via industrial chains.China’s in-depth participation into the global value chains has increasingly lengthened its industrial production chains.The question is how the changing length of production chains will affect CPI and PPI,as well as CPI-PPI correlation?By constructing a global input-output price model,this paper offers a theoretical discussion on the impact of production chain length on the CPI-PPI divergence.Our findings suggest that the price shock of international bulk commodities has a greater impact on China’s PPI than that on CPI.The effects on both China’s PPI and CPI estimated by using the single-country input-output model are higher than the results estimated with the global input-output model.However,the difference between CPI and PPI variations estimated with the global input-output model is greater than the result estimated with the single-country input-output model,which supports the view that the lengthening of production chains,especially international production chains,leads to a divergence between CPI and PPI.Empirical results based on cross-national panel data also suggest that the lengthening of production chains has reduced the CPI-PPI correlation for countries,i.e.the lengthening of production chains has increased the PPI-CPI divergence.That is to say,policymakers should target not just CPI in maintaining price stability,but instead focus on the stability of both PPI and CPI.Efforts can be made to proactively adjust the price index system,and formulate the industrial chain price index.

Understanding the Relationship Between Shrinking Cities and Land Prices:Spatial Pattern,Effectiveness,and Policy Implications

Urban shrinkage has emerged as a widespread phenomenon globally and has a significant impact on land,particularly in terms of land use and price.This study focuses on 2851 county-level cities in China in 2005–2018(excluding Hong Kong,Macao,Taiwan,and‘no data’areas in Qinhai-Tibet Plateau)as the fundamental units of analysis.By employing nighttime light(NTL)data to identify shrinking cities,the propensity score matching(PSM)model was used to quantitatively examine the impact of shrinking cities on land prices,and evaluate the magnitude of this influence.The findings demonstrate the following:1)there were 613 shrinking cities in China,with moderate shrinkage being the most prevalent and severe shrinkage being the least.2)Regional disparities are evident in the spatial distribution of shrinking cities,especially in areas with diverse terrain.3)The spatial pattern of land price exhibits a significant correlated to the economic and administrative levels.4)Shrinking cities significantly negatively impact on the overall land price(ATT=–0.1241,P<0.05).However,the extent of the effect varies significantly among different spatial regions.This study contributes novel insights into the investigation of land prices and shrinking cities,ultimately serving as a foundation for government efforts to promote the sustainable development of urban areas.

Price prediction of power transformer materials based on CEEMD and GRU

The rapid growth of the Chinese economy has fueled the expansion of power grids.Power transformers are key equipment in power grid projects,and their price changes have a significant impact on cost control.However,the prices of power transformer materials manifest as nonsmooth and nonlinear sequences.Hence,estimating the acquisition costs of power grid projects is difficult,hindering the normal operation of power engineering construction.To more accurately predict the price of power transformer materials,this study proposes a method based on complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition(CEEMD)and gated recurrent unit(GRU)network.First,the CEEMD decomposed the price series into multiple intrinsic mode functions(IMFs).Multiple IMFs were clustered to obtain several aggregated sequences based on the sample entropy of each IMF.Then,an empirical wavelet transform(EWT)was applied to the aggregation sequence with a large sample entropy,and the multiple subsequences obtained from the decomposition were predicted by the GRU model.The GRU model was used to directly predict the aggregation sequences with a small sample entropy.In this study,we used authentic historical pricing data for power transformer materials to validate the proposed approach.The empirical findings demonstrated the efficacy of our method across both datasets,with mean absolute percentage errors(MAPEs)of less than 1%and 3%.This approach holds a significant reference value for future research in the field of power transformer material price prediction.

Economic Resilience in Bangladesh: Analyzing Household Well-Being amidst Price Hikes through ANOVA and Paired Sample t-Test Insights

This study delves into the multifaceted impact of price hikes on the standard of living in Bangladesh, with a specific focus on distinct socioeconomic segments. Amidst Bangladesh’s economic growth, the challenges of rising inflation and increased living costs have become pressing concerns. Employing a mixed-methods approach combines quantitative data from a structured survey with qualitative insights from in-depth interviews and focused group discussions to analyze the repercussions of price hikes. Stratified random sampling ensures representation across affluent, middle-class, and economically disadvantaged groups. Utilizing data [1] from 2020 to November 2023 on the yearly change in retail prices of essential commodities, analysis reveals significant demographic shifts, occupational changes, and altered asset ownership patterns among households. The vulnerable population, including daily wage laborers and low-income individuals, is disproportionately affected by adjustments in consumption, income generation, and living arrangements. Statistical analyses, including One-Way ANOVA and Paired Sample t-tests, illuminate significant mean differences in strategies employed during price hikes. Despite challenges, the prioritization of education remains evident, emphasizing its resilience in the face of economic hardships. The result shows that price hikes, especially in essential items, lead to substantial adjustments in living costs, with items like onions, garlic, and ginger experiencing significant increases of 275%, 108%, and 483%, respectively.

The Influence of Price Discrimination from Airports on the Route Development Behavior of Airlines

Given the prominence and magnitude of airport incentive schemes,it is surprising that literature hitherto remains silent as to their effectiveness.In this paper,the relationship between airport incentive schemes and the route development behavior of airlines is analyzed.Because of rare and often controversial findings in the extant literature regarding relevant influencing variables for attracting airlines at an airport,expert interviews are used as a complement to formulate testable hypotheses in this regard.A fixed effects regression model is used to test the hypotheses with a dataset that covers all seat capacity offered at the 22 largest German commercial airports in the week 46 from 2004 to 2011.It is found that incentives from primary choice,as well as secondary choice airports,have a significant influence on Low Cost Carriers.Furthermore,Low Cost Carriers,in general,do not leave any of both types of airports when the incentives cease.In the case of Network Carriers,no case is found where one joins a primary choice airport and receives an incentive.Insufficient data between Network Carriers and secondary choice airports in the time when incentives have ceased means that no statement can be given.

Stock Price Prediction Based on the Bi-GRU-Attention Model

The stock market, as one of the hotspots in the financial field, forms a data system with a huge volume of data and complex relationships between various factors, making stock price prediction an area of keen interest for further in-depth mining and research. Mathematical statistics methods struggle to deal with nonlinear relationships in practical applications, making it difficult to explore deep information about stocks. Meanwhile, machine learning methods, particularly neural network models and composite models, which have achieved outstanding results in other fields, are being applied to the stock market with significant results. However, researchers have found that these methods do not grasp the essential information of the data as well as expected. In response to these issues, researchers are exploring better neural network models and combining them with other methods to analyze stock data. Thus, this paper proposes the ABiGRU composite model, which combines the attention mechanism and bidirectional gated recurrent unit (GRU) that can effectively extract data features for stock price prediction research. Models such as LSTM, GRU, and Bi-LSTM are selected for comparative experiments. To ensure the credibility and representativeness of the research data, daily stock price indices of BYD are chosen for closing price prediction studies across different models. The results show that the ABiGRU model has a lower prediction error and better fitting effect on three index-based stock prices, enhancing the learning efficiency of the neural network model and demonstrating good prediction stability. This suggests that the ABiGRU model is highly adaptable for stock price prediction.

Fuzzy Inventory Model under Selling Price Dependent Demand and Variable Deterioration with Fully Backlogged Shortages

The objective is to develop a model considering demand dependent on selling price and deterioration occurs after a certain period of time, which follows two-parameter Weibull distribution. Shortages are allowed and fully backlogged. Fuzzy optimal solution is obtained by considering hexagonal fuzzy numbers and for defuzzification Graded Mean Integration Representation Method. A numerical example is provided for the illustration of crisp and fuzzy, both models. To observe the effect of changes in parameters, sensitivity analysis is carried out.

The Prediction for the Consumer Price Index of Residents in Perspective of Time Series Method in Case of Chongqing

The consumer price index (CPI) measures the relative number of changes in the price level of consumer goods and services over time, reflecting the trend and degree of changes in the price level of goods and services purchased by residents. This article uses the ARMA model to analyze the fluctuation trend of the CPI (taking Chongqing as an example) and make short-term predictions. To test the predictive performance of the model, the observation values from January to December 2023 were retained as the reference object for evaluating the predictive accuracy of the model. Finally, through trial predictions of the data from May to August 2023, it was found that the constructed model had good fitting performance.

The Causes of Hiking Ethiopian Consumer Prices

A growing consumer price is creating instability in the macroeconomic environment and hinders the consumption level of especially the poor society.This paper then explored the major causes of such increasing consumer prices using Ethiopian cases.Using data from the National Bank of Ethiopia from 1982/1983 to 2019/2020,it condensed the information of monetary sector,external sector and fiscal sector variables to a small set to estimate the causes of Ethiopian consumer price hiking using the ARDL model.The factors determining consumer price differ from food to non-food.The most important factors determining food price are price expectation and fiscal factors.On the other hand,the main determinant of non-food consumer prices is the fiscal factor.The author also found evidence of fiscal factors and price expectation effects on general consumer prices.Therefore,to contain the rise in consumer prices,it needs to exercise conservative fiscal stances,which require minimizing deficit financing,reducing the import tax rate and reducing domestic indirect tax rates such as excise tax and value added tax on basic consumer goods and services.Moreover,sound government policies are essential to address inflation anticipations(providing information for society about the future of inflation)to change public opinion.

Is pass‑through of the exchange rate to restaurant and hotel prices asymmetric in the US?Role of monetary policy uncertainty

This study examines the exchange rate pass-through to the United States(US)restaurant and hotel prices by incorporating the effect of monetary policy uncertainty over the period 2001:M12 to 2019:M01.Using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag(NARDL)model,empirical evidence indicates asymmetric pass-through of exchange rate and monetary policy uncertainty.Moreover,a stronger pass-through effect is observed during depreciation and a negative shock in monetary policy uncertainty,corroborating asymmetric pass-through predictions.Our results further show that a positive shock in energy prices leads to an increase in restaurant and hotel prices.Furthermore,asymmetric causality indicates that a positive shock in the exchange rate causes a positive shock to restaurant and hotel prices.We found feedback causal effects between positive and negative shocks in monetary policy uncertainty and positive and negative shocks in the exchange rate.Additionally,we detected a one-way asymmetric causality,flowing from a positive(negative)shock to a positive(negative)shock in energy prices.Therefore,these findings provide insights for policymakers to achieve low and stable prices in the US restaurant and hotel industry through sound monetary policy formulations.Highlights.The drivers of restaurant and hotel business in tourism destinations are examined.There is asymmetric pass-through of exchange rate and monetary policy uncertainty.A stronger pass-through is observed during appreciation and a negative shock to monetary policy uncertainty.There is asymmetric causality from positive shock in exchange rate to postive shock in restaurant and hotel prices.

Hybridized Intelligent Neural Network Optimization Model for Forecasting Prices of Rubber in Malaysia

Rubber producers,consumers,traders,and those who are involved in the rubber industry face major risks of rubber price fluctuations.As a result,decision-makers are required to make an accurate estimation of the price of rubber.This paper aims to propose hybrid intelligent models,which can be utilized to forecast the price of rubber in Malaysia by employing monthly Malaysia’s rubber pricing data,spanning from January 2016 to March 2021.The projected hybrid model consists of different algorithms with the symbolic Radial Basis Functions Neural Network k-Satisfiability Logic Mining(RBFNN-kSAT).These algorithms,including Grey Wolf Optimization Algorithm,Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm,and Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm were utilized in the forecasting data analysis.Several factors,which affect the monthly price of rubber,such as rubber production,total exports of rubber,total imports of rubber,stocks of rubber,currency exchange rate,and crude oil prices were also considered in the analysis.To evaluate the results of the introduced model,a comparison has been conducted for each model to identify the most optimum model for forecasting the price of rubber.The findings showed that GWO with RBFNN-kSAT represents the most accurate and efficient model compared with ABC with RBFNNkSAT and PSO with RBFNN-kSAT in forecasting the price of rubber.The GWO with RBFNN-kSAT obtained the greatest average accuracy(92%),with a better correlation coefficient R=0.983871 than ABC with RBFNN-kSAT and PSO with RBFNN-kSAT.Furthermore,the empirical results of this study provided several directions for policymakers to make the right decision in terms of devising proper measures in the industry to address frequent price changes so that the Malaysian rubber industry maintains dominance in the international markets.

Asymmetric Price Transmission Analysis of the International Soybean Market

This study analyzed the asymmetric price transmission in the international soybean market, using data from the US (Chicago Futures), European (Rotterdam), Brazilian (Paranaguá), Argentinian (Rosario Futures and Rosario Spot), and Chinese (Spot and Futures) markets. The study looked at the price transmission between these markets over a period of almost 10 years, from September 2009 to May 2019. The Phillips-Perron unit root test was used to determine the order of integration of the time series. The Engle-Granger cointegration test failed to find any evidence of cointegration between the Chinese and Argentinian markets with any others of the international markets. The lack of cointegration was associated with highly government intervened markets. The cointegration and threshold test proposed by Enders and Siklos, succeeded in rejecting the Null hypothesis and finding cointegration among the series after structural breaks had been taken into account. The BDS test for nonlinearity showed that most of the time series were nonlinear, which prompted the investigation to look into nonlinear modelling. To evaluate asymmetric price transmission, the study used the Threshold autoregressive (TAR) model and the momentum threshold model (MTAR). The Argentine and Chinese markets were primarily suspected of exhibiting asymmetric price transmission due to structural government intervention. However, the test results failed to reject the null hypothesis and revealed asymmetric price transmission between these markets and the international market. As expected, the results found no evidence of asymmetric price transmission in the Paranaguá, Rotterdam, and Chicago markets. Hence, it can be concluded that symmetric price transmission is more prevalent in the global soybean market than asymmetric price transmission.

Impact of Sharp Fluctuations of Live Pig Prices on Financial Capacity of Pig Breeding Enterprises : An Analysis Based on the Data of Listed Enterprises from 2018 to 2021

Based on the general equilibrium theory of microeconomics,this study first analyzed the causes of sharp fluctuations in live pig prices,and then explored the financial capabilities of enterprises during the sharp fluctuations of live pig prices by using the financial data of 4 typical top listed enterprises from 2018 to 2021.By comparing the changes in the capabilities of enterprises,the impact of price on the financial capability of enterprises and differences were identified.The research results showed that the price of live pigs played a decisive role in enterprise profits,and there were huge differences in the fluctuation period.In the sharp increase period of price,price temptation is easy to cause enterprises to over-invest,resulting in excessive growth of enterprise assets,and increasing the business risk of enterprises.Based on the above conclusions,some policy suggestions were put forward to promote the stable development of industry from the three levels of enterprises,industries and government departments.

基于改进Morgenstern-Price法的露天矿山边坡稳定性分析

为解决传统Morgenstern-Price法未考虑岩体抗剪强度参数离散性的问题,引入BartonBandis准则对Morgenstern-Price法进行改进,考虑了岩体结构面抗剪强度参数JRC,JCS,φr的离散性,充分呈现了岩体结构面特征参数的真实统计分布特征,并利用此方法对边坡稳定性进行了分析;而后结合改进的Rosenblueth法对边坡的破坏概率进行了计算。以凤田矿山为背景,利用改进的Morgenstern-Price法计算得到稳定性系数为1.013,说明凤田矿山处于欠稳定状态;其结合改进的Rosenblueth法得到边坡破坏概率为38.759%,说明凤田矿山处于中等危险状态。通过与其他方法的评价结果对比发现,改进的Morgenstern-Price法既能用于计算边坡稳定性系数,又能与改进的Rosenblueth法相结合计算边坡破坏概率,是一种方便、有效的边坡稳定性分析方法,可满足矿山边坡现场施工的要求。

Prediction of NFT Sale Price Fluctuations on OpenSea Using Machine Learning Approaches

The rapid expansion of the non-fungible token(NFT)market has attracted many investors.However,studies on the NFT price fluctuations have been relatively limited.To date,the machine learning approach has not been used to demonstrate a specific error in NFT sale price fluctuation prediction.The aim of this study was to develop a prediction model for NFT price fluctuations using the NFT trading information obtained from OpenSea,the world’s largest NFT marketplace.We used Python programs to collect data and summarized them as:NFT information,collection information,and related account information.AdaBoost and Random Forest(RF)algorithms were employed to predict the sale price and price fluctuation of NFTs using regression and classification models,respectively.We found that the NFT related account information,especially the number of favorites and activity status of creators,confer a good predictive power to both the models.AdaBoost in the regression model had more accurate predictions,the root mean square error(RMSE)in predicting NFT sale price was 0.047.In predicting NFT sale price fluctuations,RF performed better,which the area under the curve(AUC)reached 0.956.We suggest that investors should pay more attention to the information of NFT creators.We anticipate that these prediction models will reduce the number of investment failures for the investors.

Cryptocurrency technology revolution:are Bitcoin prices and terrorist attacks related?

As a financial innovation of the information age,cryptocurrency is a complex concept with clear advantages and disadvantages and is worthy of discussion.Exploring from a terrorism perspective,this study uses the time-varying parameter/stochastic volatil-ity vector autoregression model to explore the risk hedging and terrorist financing capabilities of Bitcoin.Empirical results show that both terrorist incidents and brutality may explain Bitcoin price,but their effects are slightly different.Compared to terrorist brutality,terrorist incidents have a weaker impact on Bitcoin price,showing that Bitcoin investors are more concerned about the number of deaths than the frequency of ter-rorist attacks.In turn,the impact of Bitcoin price on terrorist attacks is negligible.Bitcoin is a potential means of financing terrorism,but it does not currently play an important role.Our research findings can help investors analyze and predict Bitcoin prices and help improve the theoretical system of anti-terrorist financing,helping to maintain world peace and security.

Asymmetric relationship between global and national factors and domestic food prices:evidence from Turkey with novel nonlinear approaches

This study investigates the asymmetric relationship between global and national fac-tors and domestic food prices in Turkey,considering the recent rapid and continuous increase in domestic food prices.In this context,six global and three national explana-tory variables were included,and monthly data for the period from January 2004 to June 2021 were used.In addition,novel nonlinear time-series econometric approaches,such as wavelet coherence,Granger causality in quantiles,and quantile-on-quantile regression,were applied for examination at different times,frequencies,and quan-tiles.Moreover,the Toda-Yamamoto(TY)causality test and quantile regression(QR)approach were used for robustness checks.The empirical results revealed that(i)there is a significant relationship between domestic food prices and explanatory variables at different times and frequencies;(ii)a causal relationship exists in most quantiles,excluding the lowest quantile,some middle quantiles,and the highest quantile for some variables;(iii)the power of the effect of the explanatory variables on domestic food prices varies according to the quantiles;and(iv)the results were validated by the TY causality test and QR,which show that the results were robust.Overall,the empiri-cal results reveal that global and national factors have an asymmetric relationship with domestic food prices,highlighting the effects of fluctuations in global and national variables on domestic food prices.Thus,the results imply that Turkish policymakers should consider the asymmetric effects of global and national factors on domestic food prices at different times,frequencies,and quantiles.

Do U.S.economic conditions at the state level predict the realized volatility of oil‑price returns?A quantile machine‑learning approach

Because the U.S.is a major player in the international oil market,it is interesting to study whether aggregate and state-level economic conditions can predict the subse-quent realized volatility of oil price returns.To address this research question,we frame our analysis in terms of variants of the popular heterogeneous autoregressive realized volatility(HAR-RV)model.To estimate the models,we use quantile-regression and quantile machine learning(Lasso)estimators.Our estimation results highlights the dif-ferential effects of economic conditions on the quantiles of the conditional distribution of realized volatility.Using weekly data for the period April 1987 to December 2021,we document evidence of predictability at a biweekly and monthly horizon.